NASA's $1.6B budget bump would come from Pell Grant funds for low-income students

President Donald Trump holds an astronaut figure given by Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmitt Monday during a signing ceremony at the White House reinstating the National Space Council with the goal of sending American astronauts back to deep space. (Olivier Douliery/Abaca Press/TNS)

Photo: Olivier Douliery, MBR

A proposed $1.6 billion budget boost for NASA — meant to jump start the agency's plan to put humans on the moon by 2024 — would be funded with what officials said were surplus monies from the federal Pell Grant program for low-income college students.

"I'm all for space travel and returning to the moon but not at the expense of education," retired NASA astronaut Jose Hernandez posted on Twitter. "If the Pell Grant money is a surplus, how about increasing the size of grants so college grads don't graduate with so much debt?"

The new NASA budget request for $22.6 billion was released Monday night, two months after the Trump administration directed the space agency to put humans on the moon four years earlier than planned, in 2024 instead of 2028.

News of the proposed increase came as Congressional leaders were growing increasingly impatient that the agency could not provide a plan to meet the new moon objective — especially because the Trump administration had previously suggested a half-billion-dollar cut starting Oct. 1.

Related Stories

The proposed expansion for NASA — and several other agencies— would be funded by redistribution of $3.9 billion in Pell Grant money.

Federal officials said Tuesday the money came from a budgetary surplus within the Pell Grant program and that no current recipients would be impacted. Pell Grant subsidies are awarded to students who show "exceptional financial need."

The American Council on Education said the cuts "would hurt students and make college more expensive."

"We strongly oppose this proposal and urge Congress to instead provide the necessary increase to Pell funding in the House appropriations bill," the council wrote.

Laura Seward Forczyk, founder and executive director of George Space Alliance, was opposed the move.

"Cutting education now cripples the space workforce later," she said on Twitter. "Is this the future we wish to create?"

Nearly 415,000 students in Texas received Pell Grants in 2017, the most recent year for which data is available from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.

Statewide, the University of Texas System had the largest number of students attending who had received Pell Grants — nearly 70,000 students. Houston Community College had the largest among individual colleges and public universities, with 17,486.

The University of Houston was second among individual four-year universities with 14,742, behind the University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley with 15,306.

"More than 40 percent of our students system-wide rely on Pell Grants to make college education more affordable and transform their lives," UH System officials said in a written statement. "As a longtime partner, we recognize the importance of NASA, but encourage Congress and the Administration to examine alternative funding sources for space exploration."

In the current year ending June 30, students were eligible to receive up to $6,095. Unlike student loans, the grants do not have to be repaid but the maximum available can change from year to year. Students are eligible for up to six years, according to federal officials.

For NASA, the additional $1.6 billion would help the space agency develop a commercial lunar lander for humans three years earlier than planned, funnel more money into the Space Launch System rocket being built to take the Orion spacecraft to the moon, and enable more robotic exploration of the moon's polar regions before a human mission.

The goal is to fly two SLS-Orion missions — one without humans and another with crew aboard — prior to 2024. The mini space station would also be launched during that period. Then in 2024, the third SLS-Orion mission would rocket to the Gateway, where astronauts would board a lunar lander waiting to take them to the moon's surface.

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine acknowledged Tuesday morning at the Humans to Mars Summit in Washington, D.C. that the $1.6 billion increase was on the "low end" of what the agency would need to reach its goal.

In a statement Tuesday, Republican U.S. Rep. Frank Lucas of Oklahoma who is a member of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, announced his support of the new NASA budget — though he did not mention the money would be taken from the Pell Grant program.

"America has long been the preeminent power in space but we're facing more and more competition as other nations propose bold exploration plans," he said. ""The President and Vice President's challenge to land on the Moon by 2024 reflects the urgent need for American leadership in space — it's an ambitious challenge but one I fully support and urge the American people to get behind."

Lucas called the new funding request "budget neutral and technically feasible."

U.S. Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, a Democrat from Texas who is chair of the committee, declined to comment Tuesday, though she has spoken strongly in recent months about her disappointment that NASA did not have a solid plan to get to the moon and then Mars.

All budgets must be approved by Congress.

Alex Stuckey writes about NASA and science for the Houston Chronicle. You can reach her at alex.stuckey@chron.com or Twitter.com/alexdstuckey.